Chapter 14 - THE LAST FIRE
Flames were climbing through the church roof when Ethan arrived.
The place where he had married Claire that morning was now surrounded by fire trucks, police cars, and smoke.
Claire jumped from the car before it stopped.
“My dress.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed toward the reception wing.
“My grandmother’s dress is upstairs.”
“Claire—”
“I know. Forget it.”
It was the first normal thing either of them had said all day.
Then Ethan saw Daniel.
Through a second-floor window.
“Daniel!”
Claire looked up.
Her brother disappeared behind the smoke.
Police rushed toward the entrance.
An officer blocked Ethan.
“Stay back.”
“There are documents in there.”
“We don’t care.”
“I do.”
Claire grabbed Ethan.
“Don’t.”
Then a firefighter shouted.
“Possible person trapped on the west stairs!”
Claire looked toward the building.
“Daniel.”
Ethan’s anger fought something older.
Daniel had kidnapped Nora.
Burned the church.
Nearly gotten people killed.
But Claire was looking at Ethan.
Not asking.
Just terrified.
He ran.
“Ethan!”
He slipped through a side entrance before the officer could stop him.
Smoke swallowed him.
The reception hall was destroyed.
Tables burning.
Flowers blackening.
Their wedding cake melted across the floor.
He almost laughed at the absurdity.
“DANIEL!”
A cough answered.
Upstairs.
Ethan wrapped fabric around his mouth and climbed.
Daniel lay beneath a fallen beam.
One leg trapped.
The leather briefcase was beside him.
Of course.
“You came back,” Daniel coughed.
“You’re surprised?”
“I would’ve left me.”
“I know.”
Ethan tried lifting the beam.
Too heavy.
Daniel laughed weakly.
“The papers are in the case.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“Shut up and push.”
Together they shifted the beam three inches.
Daniel screamed.
Ethan pulled his leg free.
The ceiling cracked.
“We have to move.”
Daniel grabbed the briefcase.
Ethan knocked it from his hand.
“Leave it.”
“It’s evidence.”
“Leave it!”
Another section of ceiling collapsed.
Daniel stared at the case.
Then at Ethan.
For the first time that day, he made the right choice.
He left it.
They reached the stairs.
A wall of fire blocked the exit.
Daniel coughed harder.
“There’s another way through the sacristy.”
They stumbled toward it.
Halfway there, Daniel stopped.
“What?”
He pointed.
A man was lying on the floor.
Richard.
Ethan stared.
His father’s handcuffs were gone.
“How the hell—”
Daniel said, “He came for the briefcase.”
Richard opened his eyes.
“Ethan?”
Ethan felt twenty-nine years of love and twenty-nine years of lies collide inside his chest.
Daniel grabbed his arm.
“We leave him, we live.”
Ethan looked at Richard.
The man who raised him.
The man who destroyed his mother.
The man who taught him to ride a bike.
The man who buried a living woman in his son’s mind.
Richard whispered, “Go.”
Ethan hated him.
And still—
“Help me lift him.”
Daniel stared.
“You’re insane.”
“Help me.”
They carried Richard through the smoke.
The sacristy door was twenty feet away when part of the roof came down.
Fire exploded through the hallway.
Daniel fell.
Richard slipped from Ethan’s grip.
Someone screamed Ethan’s name from outside.
Nora.
He could hear his mother.
Alive.
Waiting.
Richard looked up at him through the smoke.
“Save yourself.”
Ethan grabbed his father under the arms.
“No.”
Richard coughed.
“Why?”
Ethan pulled.
“Because I’m not becoming you.”
May you like
Then the ceiling collapsed between them and the exit.
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